Best Cat Food of 2018 You Can Buy

Cat stands as one of the most lovable and playful carnivores for human being. Nothing could beat the feeling of having a feline friend, purring, and cheering up your mood when you feel down. However, cat food plays a vital role in improving overall health and behavior of a cat. One should never compromise when choosing a healthy cat food. The best cat food aims to provide a cat with high-quality protein, vitamins, minerals, and hydrating elements that keep a feline friend safe and healthy.

“About 58% of the cats in the United States are obese. To keep a cat in healthy weight range, it’s essential to feed it with food that’s more digestible and rich in protein.”

A high-standard cat food is one that focuses on delivering a list of animal protein, healthy fat and limited carbohydrate, while staying free from subpar ingredients such as soy, wheat, corn, artificial preservative and additives. That said, when seeking for the best cat food, owners should have knowledge about cat’s nutritional needs.

We spent days in researching and delving into the dynamics of how a cat food works and affects your pet. In addition, we explored tons of owners’ reviews and feedback about popular cat foods in market to come up with the most reliable, safe and healthy cat foods. In this guide, we will reveal the best cat food that offer better digestibility, protein, and essential nutrition for good health of your cat.

Top Cat Food in 2018 for Improved Health of Cats

Now, that you know everything about considerations, nutrition aspects, and types of cat foods, here is our list of top picks for the best cat food in 2018.

All these cat foods are tested and proven safe for enriched health of cats. Not only this, these healthy cat foods help cats in recovering and fighting against a wide range of illnesses including renal disorders, ulcers, obesity and many more.

Acana Dry Cat Food

The protein-rich Acana dry cat food offers maximum meat ingredients in their recipes, providing feline beings with real-meat diet. The limited carbohydrates ensure that a cat is having natural diet at all times. Acana dry cat foods are formulate to meet nutritional needs of cats belonging to all ages.

Nature’s Variety Instinct Grain-Free Wet Food

Nature’s Variety Instinct grain-free wet food offers superior nutritional benefits mimicking real-meat diet. In addition, the appealing texture makes it appealing to even the most finicky cats. Apart from this, the company claims to master the art of creating cat food that is both delicious and benefitting to a cat’s health.

Wellness CORE

The Wellness CORE offers some of the top grain-free cat food in the industry. In addition, Wellness CORE believes in providing cats with diet that is rich in proteins, limited in terms of carbohydrates and has zero grain. Being grain-free, their products offer higher digestibility, fulfilling their energy and dietary fibers’ needs.

Castor & Pollux’s

Castor & Pollux’s is popular for offering special handcrafted recipes that include organic dry and wet cat food. With best dry cat food, Castor & Pollux’s ensures a cat is fed with the premium-standard protein and nutrition. On top, Castor & Pollux’s stands as the first company to introduce an entire line of organic pet food.

Considerations of a Healthy Cat Food

Following are the considerations for choosing a healthyand safe cat food:

“Kidney diseases have caused the highest mortality rate among cats.”

Individual Dietary Requirements

Surprisingly,a majority of the cat owners consider only a handful of aspects such as age and weight when choosing a cat food. For this, they opt for any food that targets specific age group of cats. However, apart from age, there are tons of vital elements to consider when opting for a healthy cat food. Keeping in mind, cats are prone to renal disorders including kidney stone, choosing the right food could keep them safe against a wide range of health issues.

According to the Department of Animal Biosciences, Ontario Agricultural College, Canada, cat food must encompass ingredients that only animal-based food could offer. In addition, cats need a steady supply of minerals to stay safe against severe health issues such as urinary tract stones. That said, it’s essential to first examine what a cat needs to eat, and then look for a diet that could provide it.

Hydration-Rich Diet Plan

Undeniably, cats don’t consume adequate amount of water and often face dehydration. Having said, cat food must contain enough moisture to fulfill hydration requirement of cats. In addition, adequately hydrated cat food helps in keeping a cat safe from allergies and dry food sensitivities. For this, cat owners should read up the nutritional facts on a cat food and speak to their wet about their cat’s individual dietary requirements.

Digestibility

A cat food might be bursting with protein and nutrition, but what good would it be of if it is not digested by a cat? Putting it simply, a cat might be missing the benefits of the premium ingredients if not digesting them. On top, researches have shown that cats can easily digest ingredients that are of superior quality. Thus, cat owners should look for food that offer higher digestibility than those with lower percentage. However, a concerning aspect is that digestibility percentage is not displayed on a majority of cat food products today. In addition,until now, there is no law that requires manufacturers to publish digestibility percentage on food. Thus, cat owners are advised to inquire directly from manufacturers and ensure if their cat is digesting that it eats.

When to Feed Your Cat?

The time you bring a new cat to home, it should be feeding on same diet and time as before. The reason lies on a fact that cats are sensitive to change, and introducing your diet plan and timings so early could contribute to environmental stress. Once a cat becomes accustomed in new place, you can introduce new diet plan and timings.

How Often to Feed a Cat?

The answer to above question is simple; a healthy and active adult cat of weight 8lbs requires about 30 calories per pound in a day. Thus, a cat of 8lbs would require about 240 calories in a day to stay fit and healthy. You could also use a feeder for dry cat food, as it would help you measure amount of food fed accurately.

What Should You Look or Avoid in the Cat Food Brands?

Below is that you should be looking for or avoiding in the best cat food to ensure your feline friend stays healthy and sound at all times:

Meat – The Prime Aspect

Undeniably, cat belongs to carnivores and depends on a protein-rich diet. Generally, manufacturers tend to list ingredients in decreasing order as per weight. In addition, if your cat is feeding on a diet that has proteins derived from a quality meat source such as salmon or chicken, it would ensure that it ishaving an adequate amount of proteins.

Keeping Additives, Preservatives, and Colors at Bay

Unquestionably, a large number of pet food companies use artificial essence, preservatives, dyes, and additives that are poisonous for almost every animal. Same is the case in cat food industry.

However, the cat food companies that we have mentioned in this article are proven and reliable who don’t include substandard ingredients or additives in products. Not to forget, food with substandard ingredients could lead to dangerous effects on a cat’s liver, kidney, lungs, and more organs.

Meat-Meal, Ocean-Fish and Rendered Fats

A large number of cat food companies nowadays put labels such as meat-meal, ocean-fish or rendered fats on their products. But, many of the cat food owners don’t even know about any of them. In reality, these labels are controversial; whereas meat-meal could be derived from animals in zoo, road kill or even those that are euthanized in animal shelters.

On another hand, ocean-fish serves as the most popular allergen for cat due to toxin and mercury in it. In addition, many cat food companies put rendered fats’ label on a product that could come from unidentified sources such as road kill, diseased or euthanized animals.

The Manufacturer

Due to lack of knowledge, many cat owners tend to pick cat food randomly. However, it is essential to know where that diet is coming from. Cat owners should always check where a manufacturer belongs, as some countries have lax food-laws and don’t guarantee any quality. Thus, in this article, we’ve listed only the best cat food companies who are located in United States, New Zealand, Canada and countries that impose strict regulations and laws for food quality.

Relying on Recalled or Discontinued Brands

Irrefutably, many brands face recall including the superior ones. In addition, cat food owners shouldn’t put life span of their pet on stake by relying on brands that face recall for more than once in a five-year period. Considering life span of a cat i.e. ten to fifteen years, it could deal with multiple dodges with brands who face recalls every now and then. Thus, in our guide, we’ve only listed the top cat food companies who don’t hold a history of frequent recalls.

The Top Types of Healthy Cat Foods

While choosing the best cat foods, we came up with the most popular types of cat foods that are available in the market. Here are the types of cat food that cat owners could choose from:

“Dry cat food is often misunderstood to offer dental benefits. Cats don’t chew in a way that would help clean teeth.”

Dry Cat Food

Dry cat food is often considered as beneficial for dental health of cat, but it is a myth. In reality, cats don’t chew the food thoroughly, eliminating the chances of dry meal to scrape any plaque from a cat’s teeth. Besides, dry food is comparatively cheaper and easy to carry and spoiled less than wet food. However, a concerning aspect of cat dry food is that it doesn’t meets up to hydrating requirement of cats and often cause dehydration.

Natural Cat Food

Natural cat food is defined as one that is derived from either a plant or animal through purification, extraction, or any other process, however, it shouldn’t have been subjected to any additive or synthetic material. In addition, the natural cat food shouldn’t contain any chemically or synthetically produced ingredients.

“Canned and raw food have proven in helping cats reduce weight.”

Wet Cat Food

On another hand, wet cat food is considered more benefitting than dried ones. The reason lays on a fact that it serves as a source of hydration, improving overall health of a pet cat. In addition, the wet cat food is often less processes and thus more rich in nutrition and proteins.

Organic Cat Food

Organic cat food refers to all those cat foods that contain ingredients including crop or meat of an animal that feed and live on a land free from pesticides for 3 years. In addition, such animals shouldn’t be subjected to any sort of antibiotics or growth hormones. Besides, these animals have access to outdoors and are fed with organic food only.

Best Healthy Cat Food

Cat food has come into pet-nutrition debates, raising questions about which one is best – liquid or dry cat food. Though liquid cat food caters to hydration requirement of cats, the dry one is considered good for cats’ dental health. This article unveils ins and outs of both liquid and dry cat food.

Dry Cat Food Reviews

Dry cat food is often considered better for cats’ dental health. However, researchers have shown that cats don’t chew a food thoroughly, and thus could have no dental benefits. However, dry food is comparatively cheap and less likely to spoil than the liquid ones.

Final Thoughts

Undeniably, cats are one of the most endearing and pleasing carnivores on earth. However, it sole responsibility of cat owners to feed their feline friends with the best cat food that offers grain-free, protein-rich and carbohydrate-limited diet. In addition, the manufacturers mentioned in this article offer the top and healthy cat food in industry, ensuring your cat stays fit and healthy at all times.

Being a nutritional specialist, Gary holds a Master’s degree in Food Sciences. With having an obsession of pets, Gary loves to write about the dietary and nutritional requirements of human beings as well as Feline and Canine.